


Dave Strider and the Hollowed Heart

by Callmesalticidae, shadow_wasserson



Series: The Gods Have Horns [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, F/M, First Meetings, Godstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3240695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmesalticidae/pseuds/Callmesalticidae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_wasserson/pseuds/shadow_wasserson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider, and your best friend is a goddess. Some people might think this is strange, or even warn you against it, but you know she’d never hurt you. Ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Knight of Wands, Ace of Pentacles

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are six years old. Old enough to realize what is sitting next to you. But young enough not to know that you should be afraid.

There is a goddess sitting next to you. You’re very young, but you think that even you know who she is. You’ve seen her on a lot of things. Idols, icons, even playing cards. The Knight of Wands. She’s wearing a long magenta coat with images emblazoned over the chest— a spade, a heart, a club, a diamond. But what seals the deal is the Sigil of her Aspect that she wears around her neck, a heart divided in two, one side hollowed out. You’ve seen that symbol plenty of times before.

Her claws are long and sharp, but she takes care not to hurt you as she rests a hand over one of yours.

“You should be worried right now,” she says helpfully, but you are too young to take a hint. She seems to realize this. “Of course, if you could be scared easily then maybe you wouldn’t be sitting on the edge of a roof.”

“I like sitting here.” Maybe it’s a little cold, the night air up here, but you don’t mind. You’re used to it.

“What would your Bro say?” It doesn’t come as a surprise that she knows about your Bro. Old enough to expect a goddess to know everything, too young to realize that doesn’t mean she would  _care_.

“I want to see when he comes home.” You kick your legs back and forth as you say this.

She smirks. “He won’t be home for three hours.” A beat. “Want to meet a friend of mine?”

“Bro told me not to talk to people who say things like that.”

“Even living gods?”

You think about this for a moment. “He didn’t mention.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun. Besides,” she adds, “your Bro has never gone on an adventure with a goddess, has he?”

That clinches it. You know for a fact that Bro hasn’t done anything like that. He wouldn’t have failed to mention it, as yet another thing for you to live up to. And even at six years old, there’s a part of you that wants to best him— to prove yourself worthy of his attention or just to beat him, you don’t know. But the result’s the same. Wrapping you up in her arms, she leaps off the roof. For a moment you really are afraid, but then her wings pop out from beneath her coat, like green butterfly wings, and you flutter safely to the ground.

Your Bro’s skills are one thing, but that was a whole other level of cool.

The Knight of Wands takes you by the hand and leads you to a hospital. People notice her. They notice her gray hide, her horns, the Sigil swaying over her chest, and they do not swarm her. They give way, like a river being parted in twain.

No one puts up a fight when you go into one of the rooms. You’re not allowed in here, you’re not a doctor, but she’s a  _goddess_.

The two of you take seats in a room with a wrinkly old man and a bunch of machines that keep making beep-boop noises. You wonder if you’re waiting for him to wake up, but your divine companion shushes you when you try to speak up. And then all of a sudden you are no longer alone.

You immediately recognize her as another goddess, although you are not so quick to figure out which one. She is wearing deep red robes with the Sigil of a gear drawn upon them. Her corkscrew horns seem to pour out of her hood. You think that she has only whites for her eyes, but then you realize that you are only looking at her eyelids.

She is wearing face paint, an interplay of whites and blacks. White over her eyelids and her face, black rings around her eyes and lines across her lips, as if somebody had tried to slash her cheeks open with a paint brush. It seems as though a spade was painted across her nose, but then you realize that the image of her face is a _skull_ , and the spade is supposed to evoke the empty pit where the nose should be.

“what is this 0ne d0ing here?” she asks, burgundy flashing in your mind, and for the first time you are afraid. Not for the sake of her words, but how she is saying them. She is speaking with a Tinge, and for the first time in your short life you understand what it means to come face to face with divinity. “I d0 n0t have the time”

“Don’t give me that, you silly,” your companion says cheerfully. “You have time for everyone. And we made an appointment.”

The other goddess does not open her eyes. “with myself, I presume? then wh0 is y0ur friend?”

“Dave Strider. He was right where you said he would be. And already as fun as a litter of kittens.”

Most people don’t meet goddesses like this, not even here on Earth. They’re more like celebrities, making appearances at holidays and other events. Most people just admire them from a distance, not make friends with them.

But you’re Dave Strider, and that’s just how things go for you. And at six years old, you’re a little too young to question why. 


	2. Tea and Melody

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are nine years old. You are getting wiser about the world.

You learn that the Kindhearted Lady is the goddess that everyone will meet at least once. She is present for every death, the disciples say. It is not her will that anyone should die alone, and for that purpose she comes and sits with them in frozen moments between time. It is the dream of many to serve her well enough that she will deign to fulfill a last request, to heal the pain of dying with regrets.

Everyone will meet her at least once, but few people will meet her twice. Fewer still will meet her at six years old, and then be invited to weekly teas at the hospital, with her and another goddess.

The living gods have names, not just titles. Some people know them. Fewer speak them. The names are wrapped up in taboo and mystery, sounds too holy for the unwashed and profane to utter them. Fear and awe keep the names secret, not any act on the part of the gods. But then, they don’t care enough to divulge their names in most cases anyway. Where the names are remembered, there is usually disagreement over who they belong to.

But you’re different.

“I’ve been called the Queen of Bow, since before the foundations of this world were laid,” she told you once over tea with the goddesses. “The Leader of Hosts, the Opener of the Womb, She Who Begets All, and Goddess of Goddesses.” There was a steady beat as said says it, a ba-dum ba-dum to her words that seemed to mimic the pulsing of your heart.

“But what’s your  _name_?”

“Nepeta. And the mopey cat is Aradia.”

The words were like honey, with an almost iambic beat to them.  _The Soothing Herb… Nepeta of Heaven and Earth, Who Begets All, Who Forgives Sins._

You find yourself repeating the words to yourself in the dark, not knowing why but only that it satisfied some part of your soul, something that wasn’t entirely woken up yet. A chant, a rhythm, like you’re trading whispered raps with spirits that never respond. A mantra, almost.

You don’t really know how Bro is taking it. He seems disturbed by it. He met Nepeta once, and now by mutual unspoken arrangement you have made sure that the two never see each other again. You aren’t sure why. He’s the reason that you recognized her at all— there’s a little idol of her sitting near the household shrine for Uncle Crab, draped with antique Sigil necklaces that he cleans every Lejonday. But when she up and comes into the house, he doesn’t want anything to do with her.

Bro’s older, you will someday understand. Old enough to recognize a goddess, and old enough to be afraid of divinity. He prefers his goddess at a comfortable distance, somewhere on the other side of the world, not sitting in his living room, playing board games. So instead you play games at the hospital, sometimes with Aradia.  

Nepeta tries to explain it to you one day as the two of you sit in a hospital waiting room one night, waiting the third member of your merry band. “He doesn’t want to tell you, though. He knows that there isn’t any point to it.” She smiles, revealing the sharpest teeth you’ve ever seen. “Whom the gods choose, we have chosen.”

“For what?”

“To be our company.”

You shrug, and think to yourself that if the gods want somebody to play Monopolywith then maybe they should just ask. You are still not catching on. Even when she tries to make it clear as day. “People have written hymns to me. They’ve praised me and they’ve cursed me. We don’t leave the world alone.”

You would have to be blind not to notice that people try to clear out around her. All except for the occasional apparent maniac who can’t get enough of being around her. Some of the staff have to stay in the waiting room, though, and there are a few people whose conditions are apparently serious enough that they aren’t willing to try the hospital on a night that the Lady of the Lands isn’t there.

“I am She Who Sends Messages of Desire. As it’s my will, I can make them want who I want them to. Do you see the nurse over there at the desk?” she whispers into your ear. “All I have to do is will it and she’ll walk past us and drag that man with the sniffle there into a closet. You can forget about her wife. She sure will!”

“That could mess some people up. So, uh, thanks for not doing that?”

“I’m Lady Heartbreak, and I leave a trail of hearts behind me where I walk. I’m like a spiritual surgeon, making people trade hearts like playing cards. Not because I’m intending it, but because I am, I exist. :33 < I am She Who Sends Messages of Desire,” she says. “:33 < I’m only holding it in beclaws I don’t want to make a scene _._ But that’s all.”

You shudder at the Tinge in her voice, and then you try to pretend that it never happened.

“Yeah, fine, so I’ve got a friend like a walking leaking nuclear reactor, but that’s cool. And I’m just too stone cold to fall for your wiles, is that it? The fuckers are tripping all over themselves but your best bro here just wants to roll the dice and move his dog five spaces and pay the rent on Boardwalk.”

Nepeta laughs. “You couldn’t resist me if you tried.”

“Prove it.”

She grins. “Maybe when you’re older, kid.”

And then Aradia comes, and you play Chinese checkers and drink tea in the space between 1:05:04 and 1:05:05.

Later, you do catch on. Why people might be afraid of divinity. Sort of. But you’re still so used to being around them. It’s easy for you to understand why others might be worried by them. But not why you should be. 


	3. Love | Death

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are thirteen years old. This is the day that you’re going to remember, more than any other. Even if you live forever this day will ring out clearly for millions of years to come.

You spend a lot of time at hospitals. That’s where your friends are— and maybe you’re a little weird, having gods for friends, but that’s just the kind of kid you are. The doctors barely pay you any heed as you walk through the halls this time. They’re used to you, and their only prayer is that your friends don’t scare away anyone that needs immediate attention. Some people just plain never go to this hospital. They add another thirty minutes to their trip just so they don’t have to go here.

And other people, of course, slit their wrists or guzzle pills in the hopes that the Forgiver of Sins will pass them on the way as they come here.

You’ve seen it happen. You’ve seen it all. People who have hurt themselves, and people in the act of hurting themselves. And people who have gotten what they wanted, or what they think they wanted, as their hearts are swapped out and replaced and interchanged like so many puzzle pieces. Nepeta does it when she’s asked and she does it when she’s bored. She says that it’s like breathing, that it’s easier to let it happen than to hold it all in, and you wonder how that must feel.

But you aren’t here for playtime today. This is business, as sure as the gods live. Your Bro has never been too chill with the gods being all up and in your business like they are, but you’re going to make it up to him. All that worry that he’s suffered on your account is going to be paid back with interest.

All you have to do is sit by his bedside and wait.

Nepeta isn’t there. You didn’t tell her and… As bad as it feels to acknowledge it, she only cares about Bro because you do. She only listens to what you have to say about him because you’re saying it. She won’t find out about any of this until after you’ve told her. And you think that you’d like to be alone. At least until  _she_ appears.

She’ll recognize you. She  _has_  to.

You’ve done the calculations. Rose helped you out. You got some basic figures, just some estimates that she got from Sollux or Eridan, and then you crunched the numbers. If she visited every single intelligent being, which is sort of the thing that she does, then she could be a hundred trillion years old before she finished. A hundred trillion years of personal history. When did she meet you? When did she become your friend? And when is she coming to talk with Bro?

She’s always known who you were when you came to the hospital with Nepeta. You want to take that as a good sign, that she has some sort of system to this thing and doesn’t just bounce around like she’s the timey-wimey ball of a cosmic pinball machine.

You spend your time waiting for her to arrive, hoping that your guesses are right, and hoping that she’ll care enough to have a word with you. Bro stirs on the hospital bed, but doesn’t wake up. They’re not sure when he will. If he will.

The clock turns round and round forever, endlessly tracking the going of the hours, and you wonder if this is why she’s called the Clockwork Witch. Or maybe there’s some other reason why.

Eventually you get impatient. You wonder if maybe she visited him some other time. Maybe your Bro won’t ever wake up and she grabbed him before he was hit. You won’t let him just  _die_  like this, some shitty mundane death, one out of thirty-three million.

“Aradia Megido. Aradia Megido.” You nearly shout the name. She can’t help but hear you. Wherever she is, she’s hearing you. She knows you’re calling. “Aradia Megido.” You’ll keep it up for as long as you need to, and if he dies then you’ll fucking send her back and change the way things went. “Aradia Megido.”

She comes like a sinking gale. You dare to think you feel her before you see her, but then there she is, and the whole world is silent. The beeping machines have quieted and frozen, and even your Bro has been left out of this moment-between-moments.

“C-car accident,” you begin, but then you quiet down as she lifts a hand. She does not look in your direction, but at your Bro.

“i kn0w why y0u called me,” she says with burgundy. “i kn0w what he is t0 y0u”

“Then you’ll save him,” you say, but she shakes her head. Not sadly, either. Her eyes still appear white to you, painted over on the eyelids and shut tight.

“But we’re friends. Aradia, I thought we were friends!”

You don’t understand. She can freeze time. She can traverse its lanes like some kind of sleek shiny time convertible, cruising without crashing and crushing, splattering blood on the pavement and STOP DAVE. FOCUS.

Anyway, she can bring people through time. When she is especially gracious, she can bring the dying to their loved ones, to offer last goodbyes or see the children they died too young to be remembered by. And somewhere out there, in the millions and billions of years that the universe will keep turning, they can fix him. She wouldn’t even have to bring him very far.

And all that she gives you… All that she says, as if it’s any kind of excuse, is “everything c0mes t0 an end”

Aradia vanishes, and in her wake comes the wail of the machine. The doctors rush in, but they know as well as you that he’s dead.

She  _waited_. She waited with him as the rest of the world was frozen, waited until he woke up for the last time and had her words with him. She answered his questions and expressed her hollow condolences, and then he  _died_ , and she didn’t let you say goodbye.

You hate her so much that it hurts. 


	4. Roguish Heart, Maiden Time

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are fifteen years old.

You don’t see Aradia anymore. Maybe the goddess mentioned something to Nepeta, because she was never brought up again after that time with your Bro. 

But, at night, you dream of her. Weird dreams that make you shiver. Dreams of dark curls and painted lips and slender fingers caressing your chest, dreams of a low, musical voice like the tinkling of bells, dreams of eyes the color of dried blood. You wake in a sweat and forget them, only to have them creep back into consciousness during the day, slipping through the deep canals of your brain like slick black oil.

You stopped going to school almost immediately, but the truancy bot never broke down your door. Didn’t have a job for a few months, either, but they didn’t kick you out of your apartment. Nepeta kept your kitchen stocked with apple juice and sugar cereals and a thousand kinds of tea and she was about to bring in another cabinet before you told her to cut it out.

Sometimes the weeks go by and you barely see her at all. You can understand that. It isn’t her fault. She has galaxies and galaxies to maintain, and she isn’t Aradia, she can’t be in two places at once. But you miss her so much, and sometimes you think that she’s the only one who understands. Feferi… Feferi just scares you. And Jade is just too Zen to question the gods, never mind about her grandpa and why they didn’t save him, and maybe she knows something you don’t. But it hurts too much and you don’t  _want_ to understand.

You don’t know what you would do without Nepeta. Maybe the other gods can be scary, but she’s your oldest friend.

The apartment still gets managed by SkaiaNet Corp, some front company that handles work for Sollux and some of the other gods. You don’t really know what his deal is, but the gods have more than a passing interest in you and they make sure to keep your head above the water. You wouldn’t have to pay for food either, but your shitty comics and shittier raps are enough to make you some money and you want to feel at least a little like you can manage on your own.

It’s 2:00 AM and the television has been running forever now and your eyes are starting to glaze over— you should really think about getting to bed— when you hear somebody move in the apartment. You don’t know how they got in or why you didn’t hear them playing with the locks but your hand goes down to your sword all the same. Those are questions you can figure out later.

When you turn around the sword drops from your hands. All your questions too. Some other ones come to mind to replace them, but they get answered almost as fast as they come up.

“Bro!”

Aradia is there too, but you ignore her. You can force answers out of her some other time, even if you have to stand next to every dying body in the city until she deigns to talk with you. Bro’s here.

He’s going to die but he’s here, he’s  _here_. Ignoring his protestations that he hasn’t been hit yet and can walk just fine, you help your Bro to the couch so that he can sit down and get some distance from the goddess.

How much time do you have?

“Goodbye,” you say. “In advance. In case she doesn’t give us any warning.”

Your Bro tells you not to worry about it, so instead you worry about how tired he sounds. It doesn’t mean a thing, but you need to worry about something.

He wants to see what you’ve been up to, so you bring over your comics and talk about your music. You brew him up a pot of tea, this new kind that Nepeta introduced you to the other month, but you don’t mention her specifically. Neither of you bring up the gods, or anybody else for that matter. There’s only you and your Bro, and you try not to think about how this is only a brief reprieve.

Too soon, Aradia lays a hand on your shoulder, and you know what she means without hearing a word. It’s time. It’s fucking time and no, you’re not having this. He’s going to stay, even if it breaks time itself, and—

Aradia’s gone. Your Bro is gone. The apartment is as empty as a gutted Jack-o-lantern.

She just killed him. She brought him back and  _left_   _him there_ , for the car to hit him a second or a minute later and he’s dead and she did it to him. You’ve been so angry, so long, at the driver, at the car, at the fucking manufacturer, but it’s  _her_ , it’s her fault. 

When Nepeta comes over the next morning she finds you on your knees like a good little disciple, repeating Aradia Megido’s name every minute to make sure that she hears every word that spills from your lips. And even though you won’t take a second from issuing curses to acknowledge her presence, she takes you in her arms anyway.

She waits there like that until you run out of words and your throat is almost too raw for you to speak anymore.

“Nepeta… Am I bad person?” you ask. “Is it normal… to hate somebody this much?”

“Shoosh…” she whispers. “Shoosh…”

“I just… hate her and I just hate her…” Your hands are shaking. “Like I…”

“Like you want to kill her?”

“No. I want to hurt her. Over and over and… make her feel like I do.” You aren’t even sure what you’re trying to say. You can’t say what you want. You can’t say you want to grab her, tear her apart, squeeze her neck, make her beg—

The expression on Nepeta’s face is unreadable, and the only thing that you can think about is how disappointed she must be in you right now. You bury your face in her shirt. To hide from her. To hide from the world and especially your own heart.

“Shoosh… Dave, shoosh…”

It’s hard hating somebody this much. It’s hard, and nobody understands. Least of all yourself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few changes have been made from the original version, to better characterize Dave's emotions.


	5. A Black Cat Love Song

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are seventeen years old.

Today is the day the world ends.

You didn’t think that you would have any visitors, but here she is, Nepeta Leijon.

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s with the visit at high noon? I’d have expected Bloody Maryam to be seeing me off if anybody came. You here on business?”

She doesn’t respond immediately. “This was where we met for the first time. Do you remember?” She takes a seat beside you as you stare at your laptop and wonder if you should do it.

_Install Game? Y/N_

Nothing changes. It’s all inevitable. You know that. She knows that. The world is going to find out pretty soon. But there are doomed timelines. You could take your laptop and throw it off the roof and, and… There would still be the Alpha Dave and he’d press the button and ensure your collective existences but it wouldn’t be you.

Stable time loops don’t do shit for stealing your agency away, now that you think of it, and that sucks. You wish that you didn’t still have a choice.

Your hand hovers over the button.

“I brought tea,” Nepeta says, and you’re grateful for the distraction. Your hand goes from the laptop to the little cup in her hand. You bring it up to your mouth and take a moment just to smell it.

Good old righteous Southern Sweet Tea. Sugared while it was hot, you think, and you’re not going to wonder how it’s managing to be ice cold, or how Nepeta got it up here in the first place when all she has to carry the cups are those tiny pockets running up and down her coat. It’s a divine mystery, that’s what it is.

When you were younger, you just liked the tea. Loose-leafed  _sencha_  and nutty  _kukicha_  from Japan, zavarka from Russia, dark tea, green tea, even visits to India for authentic right-on-the-street chai wallah. You are the Michael Jordan of tea, the generalissimo of scones, the motherfucking Earl of Gray, and you are going to do an acrobatic pirouette off the handle if you can’t find any in the Medium.

It wasn’t until you were older that you realized what this was. A religious sacrament, a rite of making atonement with the motherfucking Goddess of Goddesses herself. Praise her name, maybe even without a complete sense of irony.

“It’s okay to be scared,” she says as you take a drink.

“I’m not scared.”

“I said that it’s okay to be scared,” she repeats, this time a little more insistently. Uh oh, she’s a hair’s breath away from adding Tinge. You can tell by the look in her eyes.

You lean against her, and tell yourself that it’s for totally ironic purposes, some gesture or something like that, you don’t even know. You just… It’s just a nice feeling. And you’re going to leave it at that.

“Thank you for being there for me.”

“No problem. It was a privilege just to be your friend, you know? Just to be around you and make the magic happen.”

You laugh. “Gimme some credit, Nepeta! I would be spinning hella magic beats whether you were around or not.”

“I was talking about your little black crush on Aradia. There aren’t many humans that can really feel real caliginous for someone. A shame, really. You do it so well.”

What. You try to move away from her but one of her arms is around your side and you can’t get very far. “Are you kidding me? You did that? To me?” You still dream of Aradia each night, waking with a gasp and tingling to your toes and hating her and hating yourself and _wanting_ her- 

Nepeta smiles. “I didn’t need to do much. Just a little push over the edge from platonic hate to pitch, so you could feel it to your full :33 < purrtential.”

You can’t breathe. “This was just a game to you.”

“If we can call Sgrub a game then I guess that this was too. It was fun, anyway.”

You struggle, but she doesn’t let go. “Y-You introduced me to Aradia. Just so that you could watch me fall apart over her. You, do you have any idea how many nights—”

Nepeta purrs. “Yes. Aradia told me how hot you could make your hate. It was just putting two and two together to figure out how she’d learned that delicious little fact.”

“You  _bit—_ ” you start to say, but you’re silenced when her mouth presses up against yours for a second.

“Oh  _Dave_. Caliginous for two women at once? You really  _are_  the talented one.” Nepeta grins. “Maybe I’d like to get another taste of that, just before I go,” she says.

She kisses you again, and that’s when you lose it. You bite down on her tongue. She moans. You scratch your nails along her back. She whimpers and starts to slip a hand down your pants, and gods help you, you don’t know what’s driving you more, if you want to hurt her or if you’re just that turned on and gods,  _oh g_ —

Nepeta draws away from you, grinning. All it does is make you hate her more.

“And that’s an itch that you’re  _never_  going to get scratched.” As she says the words, chuckling and dangerously close to expressing a Tinge, you hear a click, and you look over to see her finger pressed on the keyboard. “And if that wasn’t enough for you to remember me by, then I don’t deserve my godhood.”

_Install Game? YYY_

You’re left staring at the screen, dead to everything else, until suddenly you notice that she’s pulled herself away from you. She’s standing again, dusting off her sleeves.

She looks down, and it’s only then that you realize that she’s standing at the edge of the roof. “Considering what I did to you, playing you like that, do you think my death would be Just? Or will I wake up?”

“Nepeta. Don’t. Why would you—”

She smirks. “Do you know how rarely some opportunity comes along where I don’t know what’s going to happen? Give your friends something to remember me by, won’t you?” She sticks her tongue out lasciviously for a moment, and then she spreads her arms out. “Have fun on the other side, kid.”

She falls out of sight before you can get to your feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor changes have been made to this chapter from the original version, to better characterize Dave's emotions.


End file.
